Tag: dlls

As a programmer person, I am always learning. I learn different thing in different ways, at different rates, and for different purposes. Usually, I write these blog posts about things I have learned recently. This post is about what I am currently learning.

First, a little background. Around 2006 I was programming Windows CE devices, and syncing Pocket Access databases on them with a Microsoft Access database on a desktop via ActiveSync. Since I had no need for the Microsoft Access application, but I did need to be able to write SQL queries against the Access Database, I wrote PlaneDisaster.NET.

Recently, I realized that PlaneDisaster.NET did not work on 64 bit machines. The simple fix was to compile it as a 32 bit executable. However, I wanted to make it work as a 64 bit executable. This became doubly important when I realized that I could not use OPENROWSET() on a 64 bit instance of SQL server to connect to an Access database for the same reason that PlaneDisaster.NET would not work as a 64 bit process. Of course, doubly important was still not that important in the grand scheme of things.

Eventually, I did dust off PlaneDisaster.NET and got it to work as a 64 bit executable. Running PlaneDisaster.NET as a 64 bit process requires the 64 bit version of Microsoft Office 2010 or the Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable to be installed. However, even after doing this, I was unable to get two features of PlaneDisaster.NET to work., compacting and repairing Access databases.

PlaneDisaster.NET makes three calls to the unmanaged function SQLConfigDataSource(). These three calls pass the commands CREATE_DB, COMPACT_DB, and REPAIR_DB respectively to the JetSQL Engine. The first one works fine with the 64 bit driver. However, I cannot get the second two to work. I cannot find any documentation on these calls except one MSDN document last updated in 2001 which of course was written for the 32 bit driver.

So the question is, how do I plan on figuring out how to do this? My current plan involves using Nirsoft’s DLL Export Viewer to get the addresses of the dll entry points of the unmanaged calls I am making. I will then use these addresses to step through assembly in the Visual Studio Debugger. I have only toyed with assembly. I don’t know if I will succeed in this task. However, I have already learned a lot, and I will continue to learn more. I might end up solving this problem via an alternative solution. I might simply learn enough to better articulate a question on StackOverflow that gets an answer. Or, I might find that I am able to successfully step through the assembly and figure out this problem that way.